Isaiah 24

Wesley: The land—of Canaan. Waste—he will shortly make it waste, first by the Assyrians, and then by the Chaldeans. Turneth—brings it into great disorder and confusion. The LORD empties and scatters.

Canaan under Assyria then Babylon, not a twenty-first-century globe.

Calvin: behold, Jehovah maketh the earth empty. This prophecy is the conclusion of all from the thirteenth chapter downwards: Jews and Israel, Moabites, Assyrians, Egyptians, and other nations near the Jews. Some refer it only to Israel or the Jews; as he mentions the world, it is a comprehensive statement of all he formerly said. Others think he refers to the last day, which I consider to be an excessively forced interpretation; after threatenings he adds consolation. The earth is covered when inhabited, laid bare when stripped.

Common reading: the LORD scatters inhabitants.

Wesley: It shall be—the approaching calamity shall be universal, without any distinction of persons or ranks; the priests themselves having been partakers of the peoples sins, shall also partake with them in their plagues. The seller—the purchaser of lands shall have no more left than he that hath sold all his patrimony; all persons shall be made equal in beggary and slavery. Both confess: priest with people; buyer with seller.

Ranks collapse in Judah. Do not preach priest and slave as a culture-war speech.

Calvin: and it will be as with the people, so with the priest. Utmost desolation, in which there will be no longer any distinction of ranks or any appearance of a commonwealth. So long as government remains, some distinction continues; this emptying levels it. The priest is named because Judah holds first rank in the summary.

Either reading: as with the people, so with the priest.

Wesley (on v. 1), first by Assyrians then Chaldeans. Both traditions agree: utterly empty; the LORD has spoken.

The seal is the speaker.

Calvin: by emptying shall the earth be emptied. He confirms what he had already said, and shews that it is not a slight calamity. For the Lord hath spoken this word: the certainty rests on the speaker, not on Isaiah’s guess.

Neither side disputes this: utterly plundered; the LORD has spoken.

Wesley: The world—the land of Judea. The majesty—not only common people, but the high and lofty ones. Held in common: earth and highest people languish.

Judea’s lofty ones fall with the ground.

Calvin: the earth hath lamented and faded away; the world languisheth; the haughty people of the earth do languish. He proceeds with the subject; all this tends to explain the emptying. Height of rank does not exempt.

Both traditions agree: world withers. The peoples of chapters 13–23 are gathered into one judgment.

Wesley: Defiled—by the wickedness of its people. The laws—the laws of God. Ordinance—God’s ordinances concerning his worship and service; the singular being put for the plural. Covenant—the covenant made between God and Abraham, and all his posterity, which was everlasting, both on God’s part, who engaged to be a God to them and to their seed forever, and on Israel’s part, who were obliged to constant and perpetual obedience thro’ all generations. Defiled earth; everlasting covenant broken.

Wesley reads the everlasting covenant as the one made with Abraham, binding on both sides. The land is defiled because a people who had been given laws and statutes broke them; the judgment answers unfaithfulness.

Calvin: and the earth was deceitful under the inhabitants thereof, because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant. Others render defiled or polluted. The cause of the emptying is guilt under a known word. The everlasting covenant is God’s settled order, broken by those who had the law.

Both sides agree: laws, statutes, covenant.

Wesley: The curse—the curse of God threatened to transgressors. Burned—are consumed by the wrath of God, which is commonly compared to fire. On this both agree: curse, guilt, few left.

Few left prepares the gleaning of v. 13.

Calvin: therefore hath the curse devoured the earth. Some render it perjury; as (ālāh) also denotes an oath, the curse of the covenant-breakers is in view. Inhabitants suffer for their guilt; few men are left. The remnant is already in the sentence.

Few men left.

Wesley: Mourneth—because there are none to drink it. Grief is ascribed to senseless creatures by a figure usual in all authors. Languisheth—because there are no people left to dress it, or gather its grapes. The merry-hearted—that made their hearts merry with wine. Vine and merry-hearted fail together.

Judah’s vintage fails.

Calvin: the wine hath failed, the vine languisheth, all the merry-hearted do sigh. He threatens chiefly those who lived in pleasure. When the vintage fails, the sigh replaces the song.

Even the merry-hearted sigh.

Wesley: Tabrets—which they used in their feasts. The noise—the word properly signifies a confused clamour, such as drunken men make. Tambourine, shout, and lyre stop.

Judah’s feasts fall silent.

Calvin (on v. 7): they shall not drink wine with a song. Tambourine and harp belong to that silenced mirth. The emptying reaches the instruments.

Both readings: jubilant noise ceased.

Wesley: Bitter—because of the fears and miseries wherewith it is mixed. Wine without song; drink made bitter.

Fear spoils the cup.

Calvin: they shall not drink wine with a song. To drink wine is not in itself evil, because God created it; he condemns the abuse in feasts when judgment stands at the door. Strong drink shall be bitter to them that drink it.

No more wine with singing.

Wesley: The city—Jerusalem, and other cities; for the singular word may be here taken collectively. A city of confusion or disorder, breaking all the laws and orders which God had established among them. Shut up—because the inhabitants are either dead, or gone into captivity. Wasted city; houses shut.

Jerusalem and her sister towns, not a twenty-first-century ruin.

Calvin: the city of vanity is broken down; every house is shut up, that no man may come in. Vanity: tohu, confusion, the order gone.

Both traditions see: wasted city broken down.

Wesley: A crying—such was their gross sensuality and sottishness, that instead of crying for their sins, they did only howl for their corn, and wine, and oil, Hosea vii, 14. Both note: outcry for wine; joy darkened.

Wesley’s contrast sharpens the verse: the streets wail over wine, not over sin. Grief that should have led to repentance is spent on lost pleasures.

Calvin: there is a cry about wine in the streets; all joy is darkened, the mirth of the land is gone. He means scarcity of wine; where they howled for drink they would not howl for guilt. Joy grows dark because the vintage of v. 7 is gone.

Gladness banished.

Wesley (on v. 10): Jerusalem and other cities, inhabitants dead or captive. Both traditions agree: desolation left; gates ruined.

The gates of the towns are battered down.

Calvin: in the city is left desolation, and the gate is smitten with destruction. By an elegant expression he describes desolation remaining as the only inhabitant. Gates, the city’s strength, are smashed.

The leftover is still emptiness. Common confession: gates battered.

Wesley: When—when this judgment shall be executed, there shall be left a remnant; as there are some few olives or grapes left after the vintage is over. Beaten olive, post-vintage gleaning, remnant among the nations.

As a few olives remain on a beaten tree, a remnant survives among the nations. Their song is heard in vv. 14–16.

Calvin: for it will be so within the land among the nations, as the shaking of an olive tree, as the gleaning grapes when the vintage is done. As this statement is inserted between emptying and the remnant’s song, he shews both the scarcity and the leftover berries. The small number of the godly shall be left out of an abundant vintage.

Only a gleaning is left among the nations, like olives after the tree is beaten.